Poor kids.

Those urchins better not try to steal my bags.

Didn’t anyone teach them not to run inside?

I do my best to shut out the travelers’ thoughts until we finally get outside. The afternoon is warm and bright, but not soothing. We follow the cobblestone path lined by tall grass and trees down to the stables. A gentleman walks toward the inn, barely giving us a glance as he passes. But I reach inside his head, just to see. His only thoughts are of how hungry he is and how annoyed he is at his horse. I let out a breath, relieved.

When we near the stables, I send my magic inside, but all I find are the minds of animals, including Red, all sleepy and content. Except for one who is just as annoyed at his owner for running him ragged. A stable hand dozes somewhere in the building as well.

I grab Sebastian’s hand. “She isn’t there.”

His eyes are wide and watery. “Simone, where would she go? She wouldn’t just leave us, would she?”

I think back to all the times I’ve accidentally slipped into Jemma’s mind. While the responsibility for two new children was unexpected for her—especially after her brother had been missing for more than a decade—it was not unwelcome. She loves Sebastian, and she’s kind to me. She wouldn’t abandon us.

“No, she’d never.”

Sebastian’s growing panic leaches into my head. It winds around our throats, threatening to choke us both.

“Come on.” I tug Sebastian back toward the inn, and once inside, we head directly up the stairs toward the rooms instead of back to the tavern area. It’s the only place we haven’t searched yet, though I can’t imagine why she’d be there. The hallway is dark and shadowed, but no mind can hide from me. We start down the hall, my magic reaching into every corner, until I finally alight on something familiar, but it slips away before I can read it clearly.

“This way,” I say. We round a corner, and Sebastian cries out. A shape that looks like Jemma’s stands at the end of the hall, trying to unlock the door to a room. I freeze.

Something’s wrong.

“Jemma!” Sebastian cries, and the figure’s head jerks up. “Where have you been?”

My hands begin to twitch. I can’t feel Jemma’s mind, even though her body stands before us, slack-jawed with surprise. Another consciousness controls her instead. My breath grows short.

“I don’t have time for this.” She shoves past Sebastian as if she doesn’t even know him, and he falls to the floor.

I flatten against the wall, squeezing my eyes shut as Jemma hurries past me too. As she does, the sickening feel of the mind of the body walker in our guardian’s body makes my knees tremble.

The dominant thoughts are singularly focused: I must find them. I must find them.

But the body walker doesn’t seem to know what “them” is, only a vague idea that something is missing and must be found.